Hey, I’m the Featured Member for August 2015 – Los Angeles Center of Photography

This month I am the featured member in the Member Gallery at the Los Angeles Center of Photography website. My gallery displays a 20-image portfolio of my street work from the past three years. As I choose this set of images, I was looking for those of which I was most proud of with a consistent feel. I was not looking for images from a single place or time, so it is all the more interesting to examine some of the characteristics of this set.

Of the 20 images, 10 are from Los Angeles taken on various trips to Downtown, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills. 5 of these are from a 3-day stretch of intensive shooting downtown that I did earlier this year for a book project with John Free.

Downtown LA with John Free

2 images are from workshop intensives, with Jay Maisel and Sam Abell. During these workshops, you are challenged each day you to make 5 images for the next day’s workshop critique. These two images mark, for me, a breakthrough in thinking.

New York City with Jay Maisel

Whidbey Island with Sam Abell

The remaining 8 images are from the various travel trips I have started to do in the last few years. The images are from Havana Cuba, Oaxaca Mexico, Lisbon Portugal, and Dublin Ireland, but none of are particularly “travel” images.

Of the 20 images, all but 1, was taken with a micro-four-thirds mirror less camera as I ditched my dSLR sometime in late 2012.

One of the earliest images in the collection, from 2012, was taken in Beverly Hills. I was out for a couple hour photo walk with a good friend and my husband. It was a nothing special day with a nothing special agenda, but my mind had been freshly implanted with the teachings and matras from Jay Maisel’s: “you are responsible for every millimeter of the frame”, “show me the rip in the fabric”, “light-color-gesture”. This image was my only keeper of the day, but what a keeper it was. It will be a permanent member of my top 20 street photographs.

Beverly Hills with Jerry Weber

The most recent images, one is featured at the top of this page, are from Santa Monica Beach and represents all that I am working to achieve now in my photography: walking into the scene to create deeply layered images capturing the full figure and the context behind while carefully managing the juxtapositions between the image elements.

Enjoy my portfolio gallery at the Los Angeles Center of Photography website. And I can’t help but plug and upcoming guest lecture workshop “Sharpening your Photographic Vision” with Sam Abell. The lecture is Dec 3, 2015with the workshop Dec 4–6, 2015.

Wall to Wall People – Working with Complexity

When it comes to my street photography, I am heavily influenced by the work of Alex Webb and David Alan Harvey. Both of these photographers are known for their highly layered complex images with compositions that play with the juxtapositions of near and far subjects. Though these compositions are quite complex, each image is collection of clearly identifiable scenes and interactions, each playing out in their own space within the image.

Here is a set of images from Santa Monica Beach taken during the busy July 4th weekend. The bright sun and harsh light adds to this colorful and active scene. Images were taken with the Olympus OM-D EM-1 and 17mm lens (35mm effect focal) prime lens. Although you may think that with these more complicated the scenes, a zoom lens would help manage what is in the frame, however, I find it easiest when I stick to a fixed focal length and move my feet to find the right location then wait for the moment.

Summer Sugar

Yesterday it finally sunk in that summer was upon us. A day at the beach can do that.

A lesson with Sam Abell – Micro-composition

Recently I took a workshop called “Sharpening your Photographic Vision” with Sam Abell, a veteran National Geographic photographer, at the Julia Dean Photo Workshops studio. This lesson is about macro-composition and micro-composition.

Sam and I were walking up the beach when we saw the curved boardwalk winding through the sand. I commented that it might make a good macro-composition. Sam was teaching us to find the macro-composition, the overall composition and lighting, and then fit a subject inside with, what he calls the micro-composition. On the macro-composition, he would tell us to mind the corners and make them strong. On the micro-composition it was all about find a clean space for all the elements. He would call the macro-composition “The Setup”.

The Setup

So Sam helped me frame up the macro-composition, using the path to create strong corners and we took a few shots comparing our ideas. He then agreed to be my subject and took deliberate walk down the path. But Sam knew something I did not. Sam knew that this composition would not work. There was no space for the micro-composition. No space for the subject to fit within the scene.

First Series

As you see in this sequence, there are only two reasonably strong frames: the first and the last. In the first frame, Sam just simply overpowers the scene behind. Unfortunately, to keep his head, and really just his hat, above the commotion of the roller coaster, I had to cut off his feet. The last frame is interesting because, however small, it shows Sam cleanly composed against the green fence. I needed to find a macro-composition that would allow room for my subject while they were still strong in the frame.

Second Setup

I shifted to a new position a few steps to the right. I was still using the background and the strength of the pathway into the corners, but this time I had room for the subject to move through the image. Sam walked again. The outcome was more successful but now illustrated that I had left too much space for the subject and also inadvertently cut off the edge of the trash barrel and the edge of the roller coaster. Note however, the clean composition around Sam and each trash barrel. This is the micro-composition.

Final Setup – macro-composition and micro-composition in balance

The final positiong produced our objective. With just a slight modification of my position, I achieved a clean background of sky, roller coaster, trash barrels and path. There is a good balance between the space for the subject to walk and the presence of the background. Moreover, look at how the shadow fits within the frame. The micro-composition fits Sam just right in between both the two large trashcans and the two smaller ones.

Thank you Sam for your patience and lesson.

Beach Figures